


Let It Happen

by siskins



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-24
Updated: 2016-01-24
Packaged: 2018-05-16 00:27:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,274
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5806159
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/siskins/pseuds/siskins
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"All she’s sure of is that neither of them have any use for apologies now." Just a bitter-sweet, Ygritte-focused retelling of her brief reunion with Jon Snow in 'The Watchers on the Wall' S4E9. One-shot.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Let It Happen

**Author's Note:**

> These two idiots have been playing on my mind for a while now. I'm not sure if I've made myself feel better or worse about them by writing this. Starts from when Jon turns and first sees Ygritte, mid-battle. Strays from the book/TV plot. I own nothing.

“Ygritte.” Her name on his lips makes her feel things she had vowed never to feel again. A traitorous skip in her heartbeat, a shiver up her spine that she can’t control. Inappropriate considering they’re in the middle of a battle. Inappropriate in general after all the promises she’s been making to herself.

She has been over this moment in her head time and time again. It’s been the only thing keeping her going recently.

_One of the only things_ , a voice reminds her. She pushes the emotions back. _Not now_.

It was all planned. All of it. The next time she saw Jon Snow she’d put an arrow through his heart. And this time she wouldn't miss. This time, she’d do to him what he had done to her.

But here they were. The moment was here. He was here, a cleaner target than she could ever have hoped for. The lost Crow with nowhere left to fly. _Her_ lost Crow. The pretty boy who knew nothing. He looked different, though; less of a boy, more of a man. Still lost.

And still alive.

She sobs. Only once, but it’s once more than she ever wanted to. She feels raw. Vulnerable. Her usually steady hand shakes on her bow, the arrow she still hasn't fired almost burning her fingers.

It had never been her intention to love him. He had merely intrigued her at first; an anomaly. A Crow who didn't live up to expectations. Sullen, sensitive and so unpredictable. A man of the Night’s Watch like she’d never anticipated.

He didn't kill her. He should've done.

She had teased him to remind herself of how she was supposed to feel. Ultimately, all it achieved was to endear him to her. He made her feel things she didn't understand. He excited her. He scared her. Sometimes, looking into his eyes was like looking into a fire she couldn't tear her gaze from.

He stole her, she stole him. They stole each other, in no particular order. And then he left.

Turns out, she knew nothing either.

The battle rages around them. Shouts of war, shouts of pain. Life and death. Ygritte hears arrows ripping through the air. Still, she doesn't release hers. Jon Snow still stands.

He smiles suddenly, deliriously. She smiles back without meaning to, a reaction. Hope courses through her without her permission. She almost hates herself. He moves towards her infinitesimally, she’s not even sure he’s aware of what he’s doing. He still knows nothing. Neither of them do.

She pulls the arrow impossibly taught. His eyes hold hers, deep and unfathomable. Warm, in spite of their current situation. He was always so warm, her proper lover. He was supposed to be a cold, unfeeling man of the Night’s Watch, just like she had always been warned of. But he was only ever warm, warmer than anyone she had ever known or would ever know.

Except when he left her. Then, she had never felt so cold.

“Ygritte,” he repeats. It’s nothing more than a whisper, drowned by the ongoing fighting, but she hears him all the same. She recognises a look in his eyes from when she first saw him. That look that shows he’s so strong but so afraid. They’re both strong and both afraid.

Her lip trembles. She can’t do it, she realises. She can’t kill him. She doesn't want to; she never did. And Ygritte has never done things unless she wants to.

“Jon Snow,” she says. She’s thankful that her voice, at least, is steadier than her resolve.

He smiles again, that heartbreaking, unintentional smile she used to like to think is reserved only for her and she feels the strangest desire to laugh. Laugh, and never stop laughing at the ridiculousness of this whole situation.

They’re supposed to be enemies. He was supposed to kill her long ago. She’s supposed to have killed him by now. And instead they’re smiling as if nothing ever happened. As if their comrades aren't fighting and dying around them. As if he never left and she never let him go. As if they both know everything.

She sobs again. It rips from her. She doesn't even try to stifle it this time. Pain flashes in his warm eyes and he takes another, tentative step towards her. He’s never once looked away, never once even looked like he has any desire to, never once given even a glance to the arrow she’s still aiming at his heart. It makes her feel like he loves her, like it wasn't all a lie after all. It reignites every emotion Jon Snow has ever made her feel and reminds her that she still loves him. After everything.

She unconsciously starts to lower the bow, her fingers loosening on the arrow, but not in the way she had planned.

And yet, Jon Snow doesn't look relieved that there’s no longer an arrow poised to kill him. He never reacts how she expects him to. Confusion mars his beautiful face. Panic. His eyes leave hers for the first time ever, flashing to the side and back again. He looks like he’s in pain. It hurts her to see it. She feels it psychically; it racks through her making it hard to breathe as she feels her bow slip suddenly from her uncommonly lax grip before clattering to the ground. She doesn't understand; she’s stronger than this.

“Ygritte, no!” Jon reaches for her, his arms going around her as her knees buckle unexpectedly. The pain is worse now. Much worse. This wasn't part of the plan. None of this was. She attempts to lift her hand to where the pain is worst but her arm is numb.

_This can’t happen_. Panic of her own bubbles as she realises what has happened. As she realises that the pain is her own, not his. As she realises that she’s been hit with the weapon she relies on to protect herself. _I have to live_.

He lifts her carefully, cautiously lowering them both to the floor. The movement makes each breath sting. She feels his hand cradle her cheek, his calloused fingertips brushing against her cheek, wiping away rare tears she didn't realise had fallen.

“Jon Snow.” Her voice is no longer steady; the words coming out in a gasp. But she holds his gaze firmly, blue eyes meeting brown.

“Hush, don’t talk,” he mumbles softly, pulling her closer to him, close enough for their breaths to mingle in the cold air between them. Her fear is reflected in his eyes as they roam over her face anxiously. Ygritte thinks she’s never seen anyone look so young and so old at the same time.

She tries again to gauge how bad the wound is. She doesn't want to die; she has too much to live for. She hasn't survived this long to die here. And she doesn't want that haunted look on her pretty Crow’s face to be the last look she ever sees.

“Do you remember that cave?” she asks suddenly, the question forming on her lips before she’s thought about it properly. A subconscious effort, she assumes, to fight back against the cold and the dark and the pain. She can feel warm blood pooling onto her furs. It’s oddly comforting. She shivers at her own morbidity.

He only nods in response to her question, something akin to remorse in his eyes. He moves his hand from her cheek to support the back of her head, fingers tangling in her hair. This was so far from how she had expected this night to unfold.

“We should’ve stayed in that cave.” She means it, too. She knew it then and she knows it now more than ever. An inadvertent smile almost lifts his face. Perhaps because it seems so untimely to think bring up such glorious memories as those at a moment as dark as this, or perhaps because, in spite of her current predicament, Ygritte still manages to chastise him with her brutal honesty in the most wonderfully infuriating way Jon Snow will ever know.

“We’ll go back there,” he tells her, leaning his face so near to hers that their noses brush. Her heart aches at the gesture and her eyes close for the briefest of seconds before she forces them open again. There’s still so much he doesn't know.

She tells him so, as she has done so many times before. There’s a strange safety in the familiar words.

Ygritte watches conflicting emotions brewing behind her Crow’s dark eyes. She wants to reach up to smooth the frown creasing his forehead, just as she used to before. He always thinks too much, worries too much, feels too much, and takes on too much responsibility because his best was never enough compared to those half-siblings of his.

She always knew how to save him from himself. She isn't sure she knows how to save him from her, though.

A look of defiance finally flashes in his eyes and it reminds her of the first time she told him he knew nothing. She means to laugh in admiration but it sounds more like a strangled whimper.

“You’re wrong,” he tells her, resting his forehead against hers softly.

“Is that right, Jon Snow?” she replies, the ghost of a smile dancing at her lips that no amount of pain can deter. He’s learning. It’s just a shame that it’s probably too late.

He pulls back enough to capture her gaze again, his thumb stroking along the side of her neck. She wishes she wasn't in so much pain so that she could fully appreciate for one last time this loving, passionate, responsive man of hers.

“I know I shouldn't have left you.” Ygritte’s eyes widen. He really was an enigma to her at times.

Since watching Jon Snow precariously ride away on that horse, she had wanted nothing but to hurt him. After belatedly understanding that he had lied to her in order to save his skin, she had wanted revenge. Revenge for having given her a tantalising taste of a life she should never have known before ripping it away without warning.

Looking into his eyes right in this moment, she understands two things. He had always meant to deceive her, leave her to return to the life he had sworn himself to, yes. What he had never intended to do, however, was to love her. They were both as bad as each other.

“No, you shouldn't have done,” she agrees. She’s never heard her voice so weak before, she doesn't care for it. She feels her lips tremble and she can’t tell whether it’s because of the cold, the pain or because he’s breaking her heart all over again.

“I'm sorry,” he laments, coyly brushing his nose against hers once more. “I'm so sorry.”

If she felt strong enough she might have hit him. Or kissed him. She’s not sure. All she’s sure of is that neither of them have any use for apologies now. She opens her mouth to inform him of this, but a wheezy groan is all that comes out. She’s never seen such a pretty face look so unsettled.

“We have to move,” he says, his eyes flitting nervously from her face to her blood-stained furs before at long last sparing a weary glance to the chaos still unfolding around them. “I’ll take you to Maester Aemon. I’ll find a way.”

“Shot in the back by a Crow,” is Ygritte’s only garbled reply. Her slurred words draw his eyes back to hers and he shakes his head slowly, his jaw set. “’S’not how I wanted to die.”

“You’re not going to die.” There’s such conviction in his voice, in the warm fingers gripping her face and the deep pools of his eyes, that Ygritte almost believes him.

“All men must die,” she breathes, eyes closed, wincing as he lifts her slightly with one arm so that he can slide the other under her knees. Her head lolls against his shoulder as he stands, retreating into the shadows, trying to avoid attention and fire, friendly or otherwise.

Ygritte’s ears ring as the pain in her chest spikes sickeningly. She feels the briefest, softest pressure on her forehead and imagines it’s his lips; her eyes will no longer obey her command to open. She can’t even tell if they're moving or not; it’s all she can do to stay conscious, to hold off the unknown for just a bit longer.

“You’re a free woman.” His words – her words, really - swim to her slowly, she’s not even sure she’s heard him right. She’s always been wrong, though. She wasn't free then and she isn't free now, either.

“No.” She has no concept of how delayed her reply is; she’s aware of two things only: Jon Snow’s heart beating furiously below her ear, and her own, desperately trying feed life through her veins towards the bairn who depends on it, on her, on both of them.

She hasn't told him. She never got the chance to. And now…if she dies, she feels that, in this instance, it will be better that he knows nothing. He can’t miss what he never knew he had.

“Ygritte?” It takes a gargantuan effort to force her eyes open. He’s staring back at her, from where she knows not; she hardly cares. Such a pretty lad.

“’M’not free, Jon Snow,” she mumbles before coughing suddenly, a bitter, coppery taste in her mouth. His concerned frown grows blurry as her eyes close once more. She’ll not fight any longer. “’M’yours.”

 


End file.
